A Day in LA

 Yes, folks, we are on another trip.  This one we justify (bc even we think we may have travelled too much this summer) by it being our annual anniversary trip (obviously NOT done last year) and it’s an anniversary year that divides by 5.  Oh, yeah, and 10.  Yikes. 

Los Angeles was not the first choice.  But getting into an out of Europe is still iffy and neither Bermuda nor Canada were open open.  So, LA.  “To see a ballgame.”

Now, day 1.  I don’t want to bury the lead: The experience of the Dwight Yocum concert was just weird and crazy! 

Bc we’re not doing details here (it’s supposed to be short), I’ll go with the bullet points:

• It took us over 2 and a half hours to go 45 miles, including 45 minutes to go the last 2!!!
• We never saw the warmup act!
• Having not had anything since lunch (see pics below), we grabbed a quick bite b4 going in and had cold hot dogs (and not good ones) and bad lemonade that cost $40 for what RR called “the worst meal dollar for dollar of my life”
• We both got our butts pinched by a complete stranger during the concert! She explained (is that what we call it?!?!) that she liked to pinch random butts!!!!!!
• The guy next to me decided me, the woman on his other side, and I paid money to hear him talk and not Dwight Yocum sing 😡
• We parked so far away that we walked into the next county (apropos since it was the county fair) to and from our car. 

Other than that, Mrs Lincoln, it was a fine day.

But, to the beginning, we began by walking from the hotel to Enterprise to get the rental car.  We experienced the “LA is not a city for walkers” but since it was only .8 mile, it was okay.  At the time it was 70ish.

Then to Griffith Park.  And the iconic observatory.  The views are amazing.  Funny story: RR wanted to park at the first spot and “walk up.”  😃 It turned out to be 1.6 miles straight up.  I drove us to the parking lot at the top. 😂  We got a picture of the two of us in front of the Hollywood sign, but we were so early that nothin was open.  Only in LA can an iconic tourist site not open till noon!

From there we went to Pasadena (for those of you needing help with LA geography, we are staying at the airport (almost literally) in the southwest corner of the city and Pasadena is very much the northeast corner — over an hour away on a good traffic day. 

RR found this place in midtown Pasadena for brunch.  La Grande Orange.  She had the short rib hash, I had the chiliquiles (sp).  They were great.  Here’s your food porn:

Good thing it was good and large — it was our only sustenance for the day. 

Then to the Huntington Library and Museum and Gardens.  I wanted to see the place, where I looked into doing work in the summer of ‘98 but went to the British Library instead.  The friendly docent said they had the 2nd most books of any library in the US.  We doubted. 😃  Although they don’t think it’s their most famous/best painting, this one by Gainsborough was my favorite:

I have no pictures of either the immense grounds and gardens, nor the immense buildings.  The main house was purportedly 35,000 square feet, but said docent said it was actually bigger.  Yeah, you need bigger. (Huntington was a railroad mogul of the Golden Age — he built the place in the early 1900s.)

Then to the hotel, a nap, and off to Dwight.

When we bought the tickets, on whim, having found them on StubHub during another search, the 45 minute trip seemed easy.  But before we left the hotel the Google Map (GM) showed a red line down the interstate for miles with +35.  Which became at one point. +41. 😡 ONce we got past that clog, it turned out there was another clog, worse, at the off ramp from the highway into the fair grounds.  It is the weeks of the Orange County Fair and it was sold out last night.  I know because no less than a dozen signs said so.  The concert was on the edge of the fair grounds, so…many, many, many cars.  No one knew what to do. Life was good. 

We got to the venue gate and my StubHub app didn’t work. 😡  We got in and people were milling around — it was 830 and the show started at 730.  We got in the shortest line for food and drink and were handed hot dog buns and told to get the dogs from the guy handling the grill.   He warned that they werent done, but I said I like mine undercooked (true) and he gave me one.  I took one bite and it was cold like straight out of the refridgerator.  Same face.  RR waited “a couple minutes’ for hers and it still wasn’t “hot.” 

We got to our seats, which you can see weren’t bad, about 5 minutes b4 Yocum came on. Or is it Yokum? Never mind.  As for his concert, it was okay.  First, for reasons his mumbling into the mike didn’t clarify, he covered 3 or 4 “Merle” songs.  Including Okie from Muskogee.  Then he stopped a couple times to remind us that a) he had a baby now a year old last year (he’ll be 65 in October), b) he spent two weeks last summer in covid quarantine.  He tried to tell us to be careful about our freedom AND safe…a mixed message I could have done without.  But he hit his high notes, he still has a good voice, and his lead guitarist was brilliant. Rah rah. 

So, day 1 done.  Butt pinched, cold hot dog, and sick of Google red lines already. 

I love LA!!! 🎶